I'm starting on the heater etc project I wrote about as we speak/write and following Terrys87 instructions but I have a question.
On an 84 base pickup does/can the passenger side dash be removed separately instead of removing the whole dash?
I see a crease/gap(ish) looking thing where the outer instrument surround meets the passenger side dash at a roughly 90 degree angle.

Thank you,
L

 

I am not entirely sure where you are looking. Can you post a picture?

The plastic surround for the instrument cluster is a separate piece from the passenger side dash pad. You will need to remove the plastic surround before the dash pad.
I am assuming you are looking at the top dash section.

I cannot say if you need to remove everything for the heater core since I have never replaced mine, but have had other sections out for other things.

As far as I know, all 1984-1988 dashes are assembled in the same way. I think the only difference between these years were slight cosmetic changes.

 

deleted no pic

 

Here's a pic (crappy phone) with a small screwdriver in the gap I'm referring to.
If I can do the job by only taking out the passenger side of the dash that would be great.
I'm kinda guessing that what is see is the gap between the dash padding and the gauge outer trim.

So now I'm wondering, if the dash pad is all one piece across the truck, would it be a problem if I slice the dash at some point and only remove the passenger half.
My dash pad is in bad shape and I have been considering one of those plastic covers the are glued over the passenger side of the dash.

 

If you are wanting to remove the dash pad, you will need to remove the bezel as it covers a 10mm nut in the upper left of the pad. If you are wanting to clean the Evaporator then you do not need to remove the dash pad.

The bezel just has 2 screw at an angle above the clear lens, two at the bottom of the bezel and on that you will have to open the door to get access to if I recall correctly, I may have missed a nut or screw off the top of my head. I would not cut the dash pad, you wont gain anything by that as it is along metal base that is covered in plastic/foam.

 

Thank you for clarifying that. I have to decide about the Evaporator the prior owner has the A/C kinda messed up.

 

Here's another question. Within what years do dash pads interchange?
I presume 84 & 85 do but how about later or earlier years?

Thank you

 

I bet Terrys87 knows more on this than I do, but I do know you will need one from 1984-1988. The '84-'86 dashes had the "tray" that went all the way across the dash and the '87-'88 dashes had a short "tray" that only spans the area over the center vents. I am pretty sure the '84-'86 and '87-'88 are interchangeable and the tray lengths are just cosmetic changes but I could be wrong.

 

You have 3 threads going on the same thing. Ask a mod to condense them in to one for you.

 

I deleted your Dash Pad Thread. You want to keep the same information on one thread. Old87yota is correct that 84-88 will interchange and the difference in the pads. The passenger vent on the far right is not interchangeable as one is wider then the other one.

You would not want to strip it all the way down to the base metal of the pad. Here is a thread for fiberglass repair.... https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f123...repair-230891/

 

redoing your dash, been done a lot
https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f123...repair-230891/

in one of your threads you mentioned using bedliner, i would not recommend using that.
I fiberglassed a dash and used bedliner, it ended up delaminating because the windshield intensified the heat of the sun

 

Sorry about the additional post it I have a number of different things happening with the truck and didn’t want to get them too mixed together.

The bed liner was an idea based on something I read here and seeing how really bad my pad is. Good to know it won’t survive, bummer you had to find out that way.

To me it doesn’t look repairable by any of the methods I had seen posted. The fiberglass fix does look like the best possible. But by the time I buy the stuff needed to do it the cost might be as much as a good used replacement pad.

 

that thing is pretty much toast.
My old project, an 81 Trekker, had a fiberglass bed. I had a ton of materials left over from when I bobbed the top and bed. You would probably be looking at $50-65 worth of material.

it looks like you would looking at about $100 for a 'new' dash pad

 

This is AZ we make toast out of a lot of things. Thanks for the cost info.

 

I bought this one to swap the cracked one in my truck, but the shape is kind of different so it wouldn't fit.

 

Are you going to sell it?